Fever
by sugah66
Summary: What a lovely way to burn. DL. Oneshot.


**TITLE: Fever  
AUTHOR: Sugah  
SUMMARY: Lindsay gives Danny fever.  
SPOILERS: None  
PAIRING: Danny/Lindsay  
RATING: T. More innuendo than anything. And language.  
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show or the character. Please don't sue. I mean, I don't even have furniture in my apartment yet.  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I have been informed my multiple people that if I did not write a fic soon, I would get my ass kicked. So I'm saving my own skin, here.**

**Based on Ella Fitzgerald's "Fever", because that's the song I was listening to when I came up with the idea. Or rather, that's the song that gave me the idea.**

**Thanks to Bo and Spunky for the beta. So if you don't like it, blame them, because they okayed it.**

* * *

"_**What a lovely way to burn."  
-Ella Fitzgerald**_

She likes jazz music. Not country or bluegrass or even classic rock, the way he'd assumed a country girl would. Jazz. He knows that she started going to Cozy's on a regular basis after their impromptu date that wasn't really a date – god, has it been two years already? He goes with her sometimes, because there's something about being back in the place where he feels their relationship really started moving forward, but jazz really isn't his thing, no matter how hard she tries to get him into it. Etta James, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday are just a few of the names that grace the playlist of her iPod.

She sings when she's happy. It's under her breath, and usually when she thinks no one can hear her, but he'll catch her softly singing as she's doing the dishes, or folding her laundry. She's not going to win a Grammy anytime soon, but her voice isn't bad. It's kind of low and sultry, the way he imagines a jazz singer's should be, and when she busts out into "Fever", he literally breaks out in a sweat.

He's pretty sure that song was written about the two of them.

* * *

She doesn't wear perfume. She claims it's too heavy, too strong, and that wearing it interferes with her job.

"What if," she'll say to him, as if he really cares why she doesn't wear it, "I need to be able to identify a chemical by its smell, and all I can smell is whatever perfume I put on that morning?"

Personally, he cannot remember ever having a case where he solved it with his excellent sense of smell. But he chooses not to say this to her, even though he's sure she'll find it funny, because things have been going so well lately, and he's afraid of doing anything – and he means anything – to fuck it up.

He almost did, for a while there. He almost ruined the best thing that has ever happened to him. He still doesn't understand why Lindsay didn't dump his ass, because he sure as hell would have deserved it. She waited patiently for him to come out of his wallowing – she even lied to Mac to cover for him, and Lindsay's a terrible liar, he can't believe Mac even bought it – and she didn't push or prod or force him to talk to her about what happened to Ruben. She barely batted an eye whenever she saw him with Rikki, though he could tell that she wasn't pleased from the way she clenched her jaw.

But she stayed with him, and when Flack finally gave him the kick in the ass that he needed, she was right there waiting for him. She smiled at him, told him she loved him. She gave him a beer and let him win at pool. He knew she let him win; he's never been able to beat her. And normally he'd be pissed at the obvious show of pity, but he's really tired of losing to her all the time. She gloats.

No, she doesn't wear perfume. She prefers body lotion. And it drives him absolutely crazy, because she applies it everywhere. Every. Where. She has dozens of bottles, all different scents – she hits up the Bath and Body Works $5 sale every time they have one, regardless of whether or not she's actually running low. She comes out of the shower in the morning, towel-clad and dripping wet and that alone is enough to make him need to turn the cold water on full blast, but then she carefully selects a bottle of lotion and proceeds to rub it all over her damp skin. She says it's because the warm water opens the pores, and then the lotion is absorbed into the skin, so that the smell is faint but lingers all day.

She really shouldn't tell him anything while she does that. Because it's not like there's enough blood flow to his brain for him to concentrate on what she's saying. She leans over to smooth the lotion onto her legs, and her towel slips a bit. She doesn't even bother attempting to catch it before it falls, and Danny suddenly needs a cold shower. Actually, he needs to throw Lindsay down on the bed and have his way with her, but she won't let him do that anymore. One time – one time – they were late for their shifts, and she freaked out about it.

"I know we're not technically breaking any rules by dating," she told him after she laid down the new ground rules, "but if our relationship starts to affect our jobs, Mac could try and do something about it."

The thought of being stuck in the lab – or being stuck behind a desk, like those two god-awful months after the warehouse – makes him agree to what she's proposing. He only wishes she wouldn't do her daily lotion ritual first thing in the morning. It's cruel and unusual punishment.

But it also never occurs to him to leave the room.

* * *

She doesn't wear jewelry, really, but she does usually have a rubber band around one wrist. He's never thought to ask why – it's just always been there. He used to think it was so that she could tie her hair back, not knowing then that it's not a good idea to use rubber bands in hair, but she even wears it now that her hair is short. Then he thought maybe it was an anger management technique, like she snapped the band whenever she started to get angry. But Lindsay never gets angry, or rarely does. He's heard her yell a grand total of twice the entire time that he's known her, and she may get frustrated – usually when Adam takes too long with her results – but she doesn't really do mad.

It's just one of those little things that makes her who she is. And who she is drives him absolutely wild.

* * *

She steals his clothes. She doesn't even try to hide that she's doing it, either. Not that he cares. She'll rummage through his side of the closet, searching for the Giants jersey that he wears for Monday Night Football, which she'll wear to bed – and nothing else.

She's a 49ers fan, but he thinks he's slowly winning her over to his camp. After all, Eli and the Giants are Super Bowl Champs. And the 49ers suck. She slept in the jersey one night before the Super Bowl, and after the Giants won, he told her she had to wear that to bed every Saturday night during football season next year. She rolled her eyes and smiled at him, but she didn't say no.

There's no denying that she's sexy. Her smile can be flirty and seductive or playful and innocent, and no matter which smile she happens to be sending his way, he feels his insides start to burn. She slips a little more sashay into her hips if she knows that he's watching her – because he's always watching her. Her laugh is bright and genuine, and her face lights up every time. She's a master with double entendres, and she seems to live to catch him off guard. Her skin is soft and warm, and because of that damn body lotion it always smells so good. She smells like vanilla or raspberries or coconut and goddamn he just wants to eat her up.

Even the way she eats is sexy, because if she really likes something, she feels the need to savor it completely. She licks her lips to get every last crumb into her mouth, and she sucks on her fingers absentmindedly. One time they were at a sports bar, watching the Rangers game and eating buffalo wings, and the sauce dripped down her hand. He glanced up just in time to see her tongue dart out to lick between her fingers, and he was extremely grateful for the fact that right at that moment someone knocked into the waitress and she spilled her tray of drinks into his lap.

She knows about football. He has never been with a girl who likes football. And she's not one of those "may the best team win" types, either. She has been known to shout profanity at the screen when the opposing team makes a really good play, or her own team gets shafted by the officials. She gets more into the games than he does, and he has to admit that seeing her all worked up like that – her cheeks flushed, her eyes flashing, her hair in disarray – turns him on. That's the way he imagines she'd look during a fight, and he's almost disappointed that they rarely fight. In fact, he's half tempted to start picking stupid fights with her, if it means getting to see her look like that on a regular basis.

She doesn't own a lot of 'dressy' clothes. She grew up on a ranch, after all, and it's not like their job gives them a lot of opportunities to go to galas. But she does own a few gowns that she found while bargain hunting with Stella, and of course there's that green dress she wore to the opera that one time – the dress that makes his palms sweat, his mouth go dry, and all the blood run south.

But as sexy as she is all dolled up for a night on the town, she's even sexier lounging on the couch in his Giants jersey.

* * *

She teases him at work. She'll hold his glance a little too long, or let her fingers linger as she hands him their results. She 'casually' brushes up against him as she leans over to examine his findings under the microscope. She waits until they're alone – or until they're unnoticed by the techs – and she leans into him, speaking directly into his ear. Her breath is warm, and it causes goosebumps to appear on his flesh and shivers to run down his spine. He can't hide the effect her proximity has on him – not that he wants to, of course. It's really unnecessary. Anyone who doesn't realize that they're dating by now shouldn't be working in a crime lab. They're not exactly what you'd call subtle.

She's the best kind of tease, because she's not really teasing at all. It's not like he isn't going to be rewarded for suffering through all her lip biting and neck rubbing and unnecessary back stretching. He knows that as soon as they get back to his apartment, he'll be able to pay her back in spades for everything she put him through during the day, and she won't even protest. She'll giggle as he fumbles with her clothing and leads her to the bed – or pool table, whichever's closest.

They work well together. They fit in every conceivable way. Sometimes he wonders why it took him so long to admit to himself that he felt this way about her. A part of him wishes he'd realized it sooner, before all that stuff from her past came back to haunt her – he still kicks himself knowing that he let her go through all that shit alone, even if it's what she claims she wanted, he's pretty sure she was just putting up a front – and then they wouldn't have wasted so much time. So many months of barely being able to maintain eye contact and hurrying out the door as soon as one of them saw the other approaching, just so they wouldn't have to be in the same room as each other for an extending period of time.

But it doesn't matter. Because they're together now, and that's what counts. And he's waited his entire life to find a girl like her, and he's not about to let her go without a fight.

And they make up for the missed time. She makes up for it by lazily stroking his head as they drift off to sleep. He makes up for it by nuzzling the pulse point of her neck instead of letting the alarm clock jolt her awake. She cooks him his favorite dinner – chicken Parmesan – when he's had a rough shift. He buys her a bouquet of her favorite flowers – gardenias – when she has a nightmare. She keeps the fridge stocked with beer so that he doesn't have to deal with the jackass who works at the liquor store. He has completely gotten over his embarrassment of running to the Duane Reade and grabbing her a box of tampons when she runs out.

Little things like that, they make him happy. And when she looks at him from across the kitchen counter, when she smiles at him from across the room, when she winks at him from across the lab… His skin tingles, his heart races, his palms sweat. He simmers, sizzles, burns.

She gives him fever all right. In every conceivable way. She was born to do it, and he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
